The present invention relates to digital information playback. More particularly, the present invention relates to management of licenses for playback of digital information.
Technology currently exists through compression of digital data, storage devices and network bandwidth to distribute large amounts of digital data to many geographically disparate locations. This technology has allowed more users access to more information in digital format than would otherwise be possible. One form of digital data is audio/visual (A/V) programming, including audio-only programming and video-only programming as well as combined audio/visual programming. Sources now exist that provide A/V programming, including audio recording of novels (audio books), recording of conversations, commentaries, news, educational material, etc. as well as recordings that include video content generally referred to as digital content.
Digital content can be played using a hardware device or software player on a personal or other type of computer system. Hardware playback devices are typically small lightweight devices having a special purpose processor coupled to memory, such as flash memory, that plays the stored digital content. Software players are software entities executed by computer systems that use the computer system memory to store the digital content and the computer system A/V capabilities to play the digital content.
What is needed is a license management scheme to prevent unauthorized use of digital programming.